Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/33

 9*8. XL JAN. 10, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

content. Being of comparatively modern growth it is thus a fine example of language building and development ; for it is spoken not only by a third of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, but also by hundreds of thousands of the descendants of these people, scattered over Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wis- consin, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Texas, &c. I presume that in these dis- tricts it serves to supplement rather than to supplant our deeply rooted Saxon, and is, in fact, merely a langage intime in vogue in private life, like the Jewish jargon, serving the ancillary purpose of a cult for its members in their daily reunions. As one would naturally anticipate of any community so favoured, a very high state of civilization obtains among the Pennsylvauian Dutch, many of whose leading men have risen to political eminence. They seem to possess the same indomitable qualities for ascendency in the State that are the dower or danger of the Jewish race, wherever planted. Let us hope they will always escape the penalizing postu- lates of Jewish supremacy. I will cite one example of this powerful dialect, which is a fair specimen of its organic traits :

" Unser Fodder, du os in Himmel bisht. G'aird is di nawma. Di kanichreich coora'd. Di willa sul gadu waerra uf der ard so we in Himmel. Geh uns heit unser daiglich brode. Fergeb uns unaer shoolda, so we mer unser shooldner fergevva. Un luss uns net ferfeer'd waerra in schlechtes, awer heet una geaga ungoot. For di is kanichreich, un de gewalt, un all de air for immer. Awmen."

The Lord's Prayer in this form might be recited daily by every one, irrespective of theological differences. Every word breathes the essence of Judaism, clarified, idealized, reincarnated. M. L. R. BRESLAR.

Percy House, South Hackney.

SHAKESPEARIAN A : ' THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.'

1. Should and would.

"He will fence with his own shadow. If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him ; for, if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him."

" If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him." ' Merchant of Venice,' I. ii.

An American editor says of the words in italics that the would might be changed to " should," and the should to " would," without any difference. An Englishman, of excellent taste in writing, comments :

"I must not quarrel with Shakespeare's language of long ago, but / should say now, ' If he shoidd despise me, I would forgive him'; and again, 'You would refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him.' "

He adds :

"And I certainly agree with the American editor that the sense of the passages is not affected by the change."

0, that estates, degrees, and offices Were not derived corruptly! and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer ! How many then should cover that stand bare.

' Merchant of Venice,' II. ix. 41-4.

The American says, "An instance of the in- discriminate use of should and would."

The Englishman :

" Common sense [? now] requires would. Should would carry with it the notion of propriety, of ' how many or what number should be chosen or agreed upon to cover,' " &c.

Has any one a note to add ?

2. Out-night.

I would out-night you, did no body come.

' Merchant of Venice,' V. i. 23.

"La Bibliotheque Nationale" series trans- lates :

Je voudrais passer la nuit entiere avec vous. That extraordinary translation has been men- tioned before ; but it now may be set by the German ones noticed at 9 th S. x. 225, 283. By the way, did not Chateaubriand make some such translation of a passage in 'Paradise Lost'?

3. Sponge.

" I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I'll be married to a sponge." ' Merchant of Venice,' I. ii. 208. An English paper wrote, in 1898, "We all know one sort of two-legged sponge." But is the word in use ] W. F. P. STOCKLEY.

[Hamlet says to Rosencrantz (IV. ii.) : " When he [the king) needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again."]

KILMANY. It is curious to find, in the notice of Dr. Thos. Chalmers contributed to the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' that the great preacher's first parish is persistently called "Kilmeny." This, it will be remem- bered, is the name of Hogg's fascinating damsel in ' The Queen's Wake,' and it was perhaps a recollection of her charms that allured the biographer into his confusion. Kilmany was Chalmers's parish. It is in the Presbytery of Cupar, and pleasantly situated among the Fifeshire hills that lie southward of the Tay. To this day there are legends of Chalmers in the parish and neighbourhood. One, that is very persistent, is to the effect that housewives occasionally missed in the morning the " washings " that had been left on the bleaching- greens the previous night, and found them replaced afterwards in splendid purity and beauty. The minister, it was averred, had amused himself by put- ting the clothes through a chemical process,